Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

A POPULAR OUTLINE

VIII. PARASITISM AND DECAY OF CAPITALISM

We now have to examine yet another significant aspect of

      imperialism to which most of the discussions on the subject

      usually attach insufficient importance. One of the shortcomings

      of the Marxist Hilferding is that on this point he has taken a

      step backward compared with the non-Marxist Hobson. I refer to

      parasitism, which is characteristic of imperialism.

As we have seen, the deepest economic foundation of imperialism

      is monopoly. This is capitalist monopoly, i.e., monopoly which

      has grown out of capitalism and which exists in the general

      environment of capitalism, commodity production and competition,

      in permanent and insoluble contradiction to this general

      environment. Nevertheless, like all monopoly, it inevitably

      engenders a tendency of stagnation and decay. Since monopoly

      prices are established, even temporarily, the motive cause of

      technical and, consequently, of all other progress disappears to

      a certain extent and, further, the economic possibility arises

      of deliberately retarding technical progress. For instance, in

      America, a certain Owens invented a machine which revolutionised

      the manufacture of bottles. The German bottle-manufacturing

      cartel purchased Owens’s patent, but pigeon-holed it, refrained

      from utilising it. Certainly, monopoly under capitalism can

      never completely, and for a very long period of time, eliminate

      competition in the world market (and this, by the by, is one of

      the reasons why the theory of ultra-imperialism is so

      absurd). Certainly, the possibility of reducing the cost of

      production and increasing profits by introducing technical

      improvements operates in the direction of change. But the

      tendency to stagnation and decay, which is characteristic of

      monopoly, continues to operate, and in some branches of

      industry, in some countries, for certain periods of time, it

      gains the upper hand.

The monopoly ownership of very extensive, rich or well-situated

      colonies operates in the same direction.

Further, imperialism is an immense accumulation of money capital

      in a few countries, amounting, as we have seen, to

      100,000-150,000 million francs in securities. Hence the

      extraordinary growth of a class, or rather, of a stratum of

      rentiers, i.e., people who live by “clipping coupons,” who take

      no part in any enterprise whatever, whose profession is

      idleness. The export of capital, one of the most essential

      economic bases of imperialism, still more completely isolates

      the rentiers from production and sets the seal of parasitism on

      the whole country that lives by exploiting the labour of several

      overseas countries and colonies.

“In 1893,” writes Hobson, “the British capital invested abroad

      represented about 15 per cent of the total wealth of the United

      Kingdom.”[1]Let me remind the reader that by 1915 this capital had increased

      about two and a half times. “Aggressive imperialism,” says

      Hobson further on, “which costs the tax-payer so dear, which is

      of so little value to the manufacturer and trader ... is a

      source of great gain to the investor.... The annual income Great

      Britain derives from commissions in her whole foreign and

      colonial trade, import and export, is estimated by Sir R. Giffen

      at £18,000,000 (nearly 170 million rubles) for 1899, taken

      at 2 1/2 per cent, upon a turnover of £800,000,000.” Great

      as this sum is, it cannot explain the aggressive imperialism of

      Great Britain, which is explained by the income of £90

      million to £100 million from “invested” capital, the

      income of the rentiers.

The income of the rentiers is fivetimesgreater than

      the income obtained from the foreign trade of the biggest

      “trading” country in the world! This is the essence of

      imperialism and imperialist parasitism.

For that reason the term “rentier state” (Rentnerstaat), or

      usurer state, is coming into common use in the economic

      literature that deals with imperialism. The world has become

      divided into a handful of usurer states and a vast majority of

      debtor states. “At the top of the list of foreign investments,”

      says Schulze-Gaevernitz, “are those placedin politically

      dependent or allied countries: Great Britain grants loans to

      Egypt, Japan, China and South America. Her navy plays here the

      part of bailiff in case of necessity. Great Britain’s political

      power protects her from the indignation of her

debtors.”[2]Sartorius

      von Waltershausen in his book,The National Economic System

      of Capital Investments Abroad,cites Holland as the model

      “rentier state” and points out that Great Britain and France are

      now becoming

such.[3]Schilder is of the opinion that five

      industrial states have become “definitely pronounced creditor

      countries”: Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and

      Switzerland. He does not include Holland in this list simply

      because she is “industrially little

developed.”[4]The United States is

      a creditor only of the American countries.

“Great Britain,” says Schulze-Gaevernitz, “is gradually becoming

      transformed from an industrial into a creditor

      state. Notwithstanding the absolute increase in industrial

      output and the export of manufactured goods, there is an

      increase in the relative importance of income from interest and

      dividends, issues of securities, commissions and speculation in

      the whole of the national economy. In my opinion it is precisely

      this that forms the economic basis of imperialist

      ascendancy. The creditor is more firmly attached to the debtor

      than the seller is to the

buyer.[5]In regard to Germany, A. Lansburgh,

      the publisher of the BerlinDie Bank,in 1911, in an

      article entitled “Germany—a Rentier State”, wrote the

      following: “People in Germany are ready to sneer at the yearning

      to become rentiers that is observed in France. But they forget

      that as far as the bourgeoisie is concerned the situation in

      Germany is becoming more and more like that in

France.”[6]

The rentier state is a state of parasitic, decaying capitalism,

      and this circumstance cannot fail to influence all the

      socio-political conditions of the countries concerned, in

      general, and the two fundamental trends in the working-classmovement, in particular. To demonstrate this in the clearest

      possible manner let me quote Hobson, who is a most reliable

      witness, since he cannot be suspected of leaning towards Marxist

      orthodoxy; on the other hand, he is an Englishman who is very

      well acquainted with the situation in the country which is

      richest in colonies, in finance capital, and in imperialist

      experience.

With the Anglo-Boer War fresh in his mind, Hobson describes the

      connection between imperialism and the interests of the

      “financiers,” their growing profits from contracts, supplies,

      etc., and writes: “While the directors of this definitely

      parasitic policy are capitalists, the same motives appeal to

      special classes of the workers. In many towns most important

      trades are dependent upon government employment or contracts;

      the imperialism of the metal and shipbuilding centres is

      attributable in no small degree to this fact.” Two sets of

      circumstances, in this writer’s opinion, have weakened the old

      empires: (1) “economic parasitism,” and (2) the formation of

      armies recruited from subject peoples. “There is first the habit

      of economic parasitism, by which the ruling state has used its

      provinces, colonies, and dependencies in order to enrich its

      ruling class and to bribe its lower classes into

      acquiescence.” And I shall add that the economic possibility of

      such bribery, whatever its form may be, requires high monopolist

      profits.

As for the second circumstance, Hobson writes: “One of the

      strangest symptoms of the blindness of imperialism is the

      reckless indifference with which Great Britain, France and other

      imperial nations are embarking on this perilous

      dependence. Great Britain has gone farthest. Most of the

      fighting by which we have won our Indian Empire has been done by

      natives; in India, as more recently in Egypt, great standing

      armies are placed under British commanders; almost all the

      fighting associated with our African dominions, except in the

      southern part, has been done for us by natives.”

Hobson gives the following economic appraisal of the prospect of

      the partitioning of China: “The greater part of Western Europe

      might then assume the appearance and character already exhibited

      by tracts of country in theSouth of England, in the Riviera and

      in the tourist-ridden or residential parts of Italy and

      Switzerland, little clusters of wealthy aristocrats drawing

      dividends and pensions from the Far East, with a somewhat larger

      group of professional retainers and tradesmen and a larger body

      of personal servants and workers in the transport trade and in

      the final stages of production of the more perishable goods; all

      the main arterial industries would have disappeared, the staple

      foods and manufactures flowing in as tribute from Asia and

      Africa. . . . We have foreshadowed the possibility of even a

      larger alliance of Western states, a European federation of

      great powers which, so far from forwarding the cause of world

      civilisation, might introduce the gigantic peril of a Western

      parasitism, a group of advanced industrial nations, whose upper

      classes drew vast tribute from Asia and Africa, with which they

      supported great tame masses of retainers, no longer engaged in

      the staple industries of agriculture and manufacture, but kept

      in the performance of personal or minor industrial services

      under the control of a new financial aristocracy. Let those who

      would scout such a theory (it would be better to say: prospect)

      as undeserving of consideration examine the economic and social

      condition of districts in Southern England today which are

      already reduced to this condition, and reflect upon the vast

      extension of such a system which might be rendered feasible by

      the subjection of China to the economic control of similar

      groups of financiers, investors, and political and business

      officials, draining the greatest potential reservoir of profit

      the world has ever known, in order to consume it in Europe. The

      situation is far too complex, the play of world forces far too

      incalculable, to render this or any other single interpretation

      of the future very probable; but the influences which govern the

      imperialism of Western Europe today are moving in this

      direction, and, unless counteracted or diverted, make towards

      some such

consummation.”[7]

The author is quite right: if the forces of imperialism had not

      been counteracted they would have led precisely to what he has

      described. The significance of a “United States of Europe” in

      the present imperialist situation iscorrectly appraised. He

      should have added, however, that, alsowithinthe

      working-class movement, the opportunists, who are for the moment

      victorious in most countries, are “working” systematically and

      undeviatingly in this very direction. Imperialism, which means

      the partitioning of the world, and the exploitation of other

      countries besides China, which means high monopoly profits for a

      handful of very rich countries, makes it economically possible

      to bribe the upper strata of the proletariat, and thereby

      fosters, gives shape to, and strengthens opportunism. We must

      not, however, lose sight of the forces which counteract

      imperialism in general, and opportunism in particular, and

      which, naturally, the social-liberal Hobson is unable to

      perceive.

The German opportunist, Gerhard Hildebrand, who was once

      expelled from the Party for defending imperialism, and who could

      today be a leader of the so-called “Social-Democratic” Party of

      Germany, supplements Hobson well by his advocacy of a “United

      States of Western Europe” (without Russia) for the purpose of

      “joint” action ... against the African Negroes, against the

      “great Islamic movement,” for the maintenance of a “powerful

      army and navy”, against a “Sino-Japanese

coalition,”[8]etc.

The description of “British imperialism” in Schulze-Gaevernitz’s

      book reveals the same parasitical traits. The national income of

      Great Britain approximately doubled from 1865 to 1898, while the

      income “from abroad” increasednine-foldin the same

      period. While the “merit” of imperialism is that it “trains the

      Negro to habits of industry” (you cannot manage without coercion

      ... ), the “danger” of imperialism lies in that “Europe will

      shift the burden of physical toil—first agricultural and

      mining, then the rougher work in industry—on to the

      coloured races, and itself be content with the role of rentier,

      and in this way, perhaps, pave the way for the economic, and

      later, the political emancipation of the coloured races.”

An increasing proportion of land in England is being taken out

      of cultivation and used for sport, for the diversionof the

rich. As far as Scotland—the most aristocratic place for

      hunting and other sports—is concerned, it is said that

      “it lives on its past and on Mr. Carnegie” (the American

      multimillionaire). On horse racing and fox hunting alone England

      annually spends £14,000,000 (nearly 130 million

      rubles). The number of rentiers in England is about one

      million. The percentage of the productively employed population

      to the total population is declining:

And in speaking of the British working class the bourgeois

      student of “British imperialism at the beginning of the

      twentieth century” is obliged to distinguish systematically

      between the “upper stratum” of the workers and the

      “lower stratum of the proletariat proper.” The

      upper stratum furnishes the bulk of the membership of

      co-operatives, of trade unions, of sporting clubs and of

      numerous religious sects. To this level is adapted the electoral

      system, which in Great Britain is still “sufficiently

      restricted to exclude the lower stratum of the proletariat

      proper"! In order to present the condition of the British

      working class in a rosy light, only this upper stratum—which

      constitutes aminority ofthe proletariat—is usually

      spoken of. For instance, “the problem of unemployment

      is mainly a London problem and that of the lower

      proletarian stratum,to which the politicians attach little

      importance...”[9]He should have said: to which

      the bourgeois politicians and the “socialist” opportunists

      attach little importance.

One of the special features of imperialism connected with the

      facts I am describing, is the decline in emigration from

      imperialist countries and the increase in immigration into these

      countries from the more backward countries where lower wages are

      paid. As Hobson observes, emigration from Great Britain has been

      declining since 1884. In that year the number of emigrants was

      242,000,while in 1900, the number was 169,000. Emigration from

      Germany reached the highest point between 1881 and 1890, with a

      total of 1,453,000 emigrants. In the course of the following two

      decades, it fell to 544,000 and to 341,000. On the other hand,

      there was an increase in the number of workers entering Germany

      from Austria, Italy, Russia and other countries. According to

      the 1907 census, there were 1,342,294 foreigners in Germany, of

      whom 440,800 were industrial workers and 257,329 agricultural

workers.[10]In France, the workers employed in

      the mining industry are, “in great part,” foreigners: Poles,

      Italians and

Spaniards.[11]In the United States, immigrants

      from Eastern and Southern Europe are engaged in the most poorly

      paid jobs, while American workers provide the highest percentage

      of overseers or of the better-paid

workers.[12]Imperialism has

      the tendency to  create privileged sections also among the

      workers, and to detach them from the broad masses of the

      proletariat.

It must be observed that in Great Britain the tendency of

      imperialism to split the workers, to strengthen opportunism

      among them and to cause temporary decay in the working-class

      movement, revealed itself much earlier than the end of the

      nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries; for two

      important distinguishing features of imperialism were already

      observed in Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth

      century—vast colonial possessions and a monopolist

      position in the world market. Marx and Engels traced this

      connection between opportunism in the working-class movement and

      the imperialist features of British capitalism systematically,

      during the course of several decades. For example, on October 7,

      1858, Engels wrote to Marx: “The English proletariat is actually

      becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of

      all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of

      a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariatalongsidethe bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits

      the whole world this is of course to a certain extent

justifiable.”[13]Almost a quarter of a century later, ina letter

      dated August 11, 1881, Engels speaks of the “worst English trade

      unions which allow themselves to be led by men sold to, or at

      least paid by, the middle class”. In a letter to Kautsky, dated

      September 12, 1882, Engels wrote: “You ask me what the English

      workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as

      they think about politics in general. There is no workers’ party

      here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the

      workers gaily share the feast of England’s monopoly of the world

      market and the

colonies.”[13](Engels expressed similar ideas in

      the press in his preface to the second edition ofThe

      Condition of the Working Class in England,which appeared

      in 1892.)

This clearly shows the causes and effects. The causes are: (1)

      exploitation of the whole world by this country; (2) its

      monopolist position in the world market; (3) its colonial

      monopoly. The effects are: (1) a section of the British

      proletariat becomes bourgeois; (2) a section of the proletariat

      allows itself to be led by men bought by, or at least paid by,

      the bourgeoisie. The imperialism of the beginning of the

      twentieth century completed the division of the world among a

      handful of states, each of which today exploits (in the sense of

      drawing superprofits from) a part of the “whole world” only a

      little smaller than that which England exploited in 1858; each

      of them occupies a monopolist position in the world market

      thanks to trusts, cartels, finance capital and creditor and

      debtor relations; each of them enjoys to some degree a colonial

      monopoly (we have seen that out of the total of75,000,000sq. km., which comprise thewholecolonial world,65,000,000sq. km., or 86 per cent, belong to six

      powers;61,000,000sq. km., or 81 per cent, belong to

      three powers).

The distinctive feature of the present situation is the

      prevalence of such economic and political conditions that are

      bound to increase the irreconcilability between opportunism and

      the general and vital interests of the working-class movement:

      imperialism has grown from an embryo into the predominant

      system; capitalist monopolies occupyfirst place in economics

      and politics; the division of the world has been completed; on

      the other hand, instead of the undivided monopoly of Great

      Britain, we see a few imperialist powers contending for the

      right to share in this monopoly, and this struggle is

      characteristic of the whole period of the early twentieth

      century. Opportunism cannot now be completely triumphant in the

      working-class movement of one country for decades as it was in

      Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century; but in a

      number of countries it has grown ripe, overripe, and rotten, and

      has become completely merged with bourgeois policy in the form

      of

“social-chauvinism”.[14]

[1]Hobson,

      op. cit., pp. 59, 62.

—Lenin

[2]Schulze-Gaevernitz,Britischer Imperialismus, S. 320 et

      seq.

—Lenin

[3]Sartorius von Waltershausen,Das

      volkswirtschaftliche System, etc., Berlin, 1907, Buch IV.

—Lenin

[4]Schilder, op. cit., S. 393.

—Lenin

[5]Schulze-Gaevernitz, op. cit., S. 122.

—Lenin

[6]Die

      Bank, 1911, 1, S. 10-11.

—Lenin

[7]Hobson,

      op. cit., pp. 103, 205, 144, 335, 386.

—Lenin

[8]Gerhard

      Hildebrand,Die Erschütterung der Industrieherrschaft

      und des Industriesozialismus, 1910, S. 229 et seq.

—Lenin

[9]Schulze-Gaevernitz,Britischer ImperialismusS. 301.

—Lenin

[10]Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, Bd. 211.

—Lenin

[11]Henger,Die Kapitalsanlage der Franzosen, Stuttgart,

      1913.

—Lenin

[12]Hourwich,Immigralion and Labour,New York, 1913.

—Lenin

[13]Briefwechsel von Marx und Engels, Bd. II, S. 290; 1V,

      433—Karl Kautsky,Sozialismus und

      Kolonialpolitik, Berlin, 1907, S. 79; this pamphlet was

      written by Kautsky in those infinitely distant days when he was

      still a Marxist.

—Lenin

[14]Russian social-chauvinism in its overt form, represented by the

      Potresovs, Chkenkelis, Maslovs, etc., and its covert form

      (Chkeidze, Skobelev, Axelrod, Martov, etc.) also emerged from

      the Russian variety of opportunism, namely, liquidationism.

—Lenin

[15][PLACEHOLDER.]